Let start with a brief introduction, what can you tell us about Kompli Global and your RegTech offering?
Kompli-Global has developed a specialist corporate due diligence solution comprising of unique proprietary products, linked to best in class third party services to deliver a comprehensive, international customer on-boarding, screening and on-going monitoring platform.
Kompli-Global bridges the gaps that exist in current databases to enable far more accurate, comprehensive, efficient and compliant corporate due diligence.
We use a combination of advanced AI driven technology and human expertise to fully identify corporate networks and alert you to potential risk indicators, bad actors and adverse events.
Our Kompli-QED platform includes all the elements you need to perform best practice corporate on-boarding, KYC, Fraud prevention, EDD and ongoing monitoring.
Kompli-Global’s services reduce your exposure to fraud, mitigate against personal and corporate prosecution, protect your brand’s reputation and provide cost effective regulatory compliance.
What are some of the biggest challenges your solutions you solve for your clients?
Current publicly available information relating to corporate ownership is flawed with gaps in the data and little, if any, verification of the facts when registering a company for the first time or on an ongoing basis.
Updates to Director information are quickly out of date and true controlling party information is easy to hide. No formal structure to the naming format makes it almost impossible to link ownership of other businesses, until now.
Most fraud prevention and adverse media systems available on the market can tell you if someone has committed a previous offence. It’s easy to compile a database of ‘convicted’ people after they have perpetrated crimes, assuming they have been identified and caught (However <1% are ever convicted). Kompli-RiskCheck alerts you to people who have a propensity to misconduct so that you can act before they commit to, or are convicted of, being a ‘bad actor’.
Kompli-Global uncovers information other systems simply miss or would be too time-consuming to find.
Could you give us a use case of why a client came to you and how they are using your solution to solve their particular challenge?
Sector Type: Financial Services
Client Description: Payment Service Provider [an FCA regulated entity]
Background: Our client had agreed to provide their merchant [the target entity] with international payment services using its correspondent banking relationships. During the client’s due diligence process, they commissioned a report from a well-known corporate intelligence risk and compliance provider. That report contained information relating to the target entity and its Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs), the report found no adverse information and gave the target entity a clean bill of health. Our client then used Kompli-Global’s services to conduct due diligence on the same target entity. Kompli-Global’s systems drew attention to the following information that was not included in the previously commissioned report:
- The key executive and UBO was a close financial associate of a PEP That PEP had been convicted and imprisoned for money laundering, abduction, murder and international weapons offences and large-scale corruption in his home country.
- The UBO had donated £2.2 million to the Conservative party & London Mayoral campaign and had dinner with David Cameron.
- The UBO had previously donated £900k whilst he was under investigation for alleged tax fraud and money laundering offences.
- 2016 -The target subject’s corporate offices in France were raided as part of a £17m tax and money laundering investigation.
- Nineteen employees were arrested and nine charged, including the General Manger. A criminal investigation is ongoing.
- Kompli-Global also uncovered a news report stating that the target company in UK was locked in battle with HMRC for unresolved £26m VAT under payment for the period between 2012-2016
Consequences: The client decided that, despite a potentially lucrative deal with the target entity company, the risk to their own reputation was too great and they declined to do business with the company. This decision was based upon the risk that the relationship with their own correspondent banks could be jeopardized by association with the target subject.
Conclusion: Kompli–Global uncovered significant material intelligence that was otherwise unavailable to the client.
How would you describe the differences between your offering from others in your RegTech category?
- Kompli-QED is the only platform you’ll need for customer due diligence, AML and fraud prevention.
- End to end customer due diligence – Holistic approach – All the solutions in one place.
- Logical workflow process – client configurable – incredibly flexible
- Build consistent procedures – best practise every time.
- The most accurate and up-to-date UBO registry -Corporate ownership structure resolution like no other
- Deep Web search for any published negative news
- On-going monitoring and alerts if anything changes.
- Real-time alert to potential risk. We use a propensity risk model to tell you who is likely to commit financial crime.
< 15% of all fraud is ever reported
< 1% of reported fraud is ever investigated.
< 1% of fraud investigations result in a conviction
< 1% convicted fraudsters are reported in the main-stream media.
Traditional Adverse Media providers only pick up articles from main-stream media!
Without Kompli-Global, chances are; you’re not going to spot the bad actor.
What advice would you give to decision makers when choosing a RegTech solution such as the ones your offer?
If you want to just ‘tick the box’ for regulatory compliance purposes, there are well-established providers out there who’s names are recognised by the regulators. However, RegTech was conceived because these legacy systems are flawed, resource consuming and full of gaps. New technology utilizing AI, ML & NLP has changed the game. When comparing systems, providers and technology you need to see the difference by conducting a properly scoped POC and gap analysis. Kompli-Global would encourage the ‘Pepsi challenge’ against an incumbent provider to prove our capabilities.
Due to the global pandemic a lot has changed in the world in the last year. How has your company changed in the in the last 12 months?
As an ISO 22301 accredited organisation, we’ve always had a well-documented and practised Business Continuity Management System (BCMS) in place. Clients reviewing this used to laugh a few years ago and comment that our continuity statement even included a pandemic policy. They’re not laughing now. The only real thing that has changed is that people have been working from home rather than the offices. Our solutions are designed to be used remotely in customer not present environments.
Can you tell us about some of your most recent achievements or milestones you’ve reached?
We are continually improving existing services and developing new features all the time. We have a roadmap of functional improvements & client lead enhancements and our agile development methodology means that we’re delivering new products or features every few weeks.
The launch of the Kompli-Reveal process was the most recent addition to our proposition. Kompli-Reveal™ is a one-off screening of your existing corporate client base to reveal the real-time status and allow reconciliation of the data. This can be conducted as part of a periodic review or on an ad-hoc basis. The deliverable outcome of a Kompli-Reveal™ screening process will be a summary report spreadsheet showing flags to where your attention may be required to remediate concerns, approve changes or annotate notes.
We recently conducted a Kompli-Reveal™ process for a large government department which concluded enough significant material information to warrant a policy review.
What is drives you as company what is Kompli Global long-term vision?
Kompli-Global is driven by our desire to ‘do the right thing’ in the fight against financial crime, money laundering and terrorist funding. We are a commercial organisation that needs to create revenue and therefore profit. However, the moral obligation to not just enable clients to ‘tick the box’ but educate the regulatory eco-system about why we need to ‘do the right thing’ is paramount in our mission and psyche. One of our long term visions is to influence the industry, from the regulatory bodies to the downstream financial institutions and promote best practice.
What are some of the important developments you are seeing in the RegTech industry?
The key challenges for the RegTech market are breaking through to becoming mainstream – this requires:
1. Getting better support from government and regulators to encourage regulated entities to experiment with POC’s and identify where RegTech firms can reduce costs and, for example, prevent the exploitation of our financial systems by criminals and fraudsters
2. Agreeing a framework – a minimum set of standards for RegTech providers and possibly new regulation
3. Encouraging investment in the RegTech sector and recognising it needs separate treatment from FinTech
The most significant development recently has been Ron Kalifa’s Fintech review – see https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-kalifa-review-of-uk-fintech
Kompli-Global’s CEO, Jane Jee wrote an article about this review which has some vital recommendations – see https://paymentexpert.com/2021/03/16/kompli-global-the-importance-of-keeping-uk-regtech-at-the-forefront-of-global-compliance/
The FCA have acknowledged in the past that RegTech is underserviced in their sandboxes and they are hosting a series of events that aims to create a platform for the RegTech industry, financial institutions and regulators to discuss developments and opportunities within the RegTech ecosystem between March and May 2021. We recommend that RegTech firms attend – see
RegTech Associates have undertaken some key research on the RegTech sector. The City of London Corporation has commissioned this research to provide:
- in-depth analysis of the barriers to innovation and adoption of RegTech, including regulatory barriers,
- international best-practice for enhancing competitiveness in this sector, and
- recommendations for industry, government and regulators.
the report will be released on April 16th – for more details of the research see
Industry research
If the UK hopes to take advantage of the lead it has in the Fintech and Regtech sector post Brexit, then government action as outlined above is needed now to achieve this ambition.
What’s next for Kompli Global?
Kompli-Global continues to work with a small number of direct clients but our primary growth strategy will be through collaboration with other organisations. International expansion is also a priority for our future. Kompli-Global will also continue its goal to educate the industry on best practice and influence the regulatory institutions.
Ae you able to do a Proof of concept?
The reason we enjoy this question is that we are so proud of what we have developed, and confident in our capabilities that we love to prove the benefits we deliver.
What’s the best way for potential clients or investors to get in touch with you?
Contact us through our website: www.kompli-global.com
